I live in Dalkey. So I was talking to my neighbour, Matt
Damon, over the tomatoes in SuperValu during the week. He said that Hollywood
was changing, it’s become more ‘collaborative’ and the super cut-throat
business of movies was friendlier than ever.
I made that up.
I haven’t been talking to Matt Damon, I’ve never met him, but
I have been talking to Media Owners. The CEO’s of the Daily Mail, The Sun, The
Sunday Times, Virgin Media TV, FM104, The Business Post, Business Plus and many,
many others.
Now these are people who are normally very competitive. They move to the other side of the street when
they see each other and they book separate hotels. Getting them to collaborate
was like asking Dominic Cummings to go to the Opticians around the corner from
his house. Impossible.
But now? They are…and they’re all the better for it.
Al Green singing ‘Let’s stick together’ over endless
commercials of people doing funny things in their homes, nauseatingly makes the
point – We are all in this together. All facing the same Cashflow problems,
Sales drops, Staff cuts, Landlord assassinations - but if we collaborate, it
helps.
Reach out to each other and talk about how a competitor has
got around a problem like yours or by sharing back office tasks. Previously
sacrilegiously unheard of. And in the Media business they are putting their
competitive streaks aside for the minute and getting things done, together.
They are good people, business people who don’t dither when their backs are
against a wall.
Advertising and Media Agencies are not and yet they are the
most threatened of species – middlemen. They’re going to just plough their own
furrow whatever it takes, as they bleed all over the floor. And that’s a
mistake, because they could leave a mountain of debt in their wake for others. Never
mind, a very long term staff furlough.
The reason is as old as the hills and a particular feature
of Advertising leaders. Ego.
They don’t want to talk about their problems for fear of a
drop in rumour profile or, share their solutions because, well, they’re theirs.
They leave it too late to talk mergers until there’s nothing left to merge. And
thanks to industry people like John McGee at IMJ Magazine, they have the zoominar forums, other meeting collaboration
opportunities, but they don’t take them.
Their press releases tell a story of ‘Business as normal’, ‘New
Business pitches and gains’, ‘Nothing to see here’, whilst we all know it hides
a very public truth. Advertising is in the doldrums. And it’s not getting
better any day soon.
Collaboration and talking, merging, sharing between former
competitors, is their way out. That new sense of community you now see, on the
formerly ‘nose-in-the-air’ middle class streets of Dalkey. Now it’s like a
country village of hellos, fine day thank God and how are you. We’re in this
together. Put differences away and seize opportunities. Advertising Agencies
and Hollywood. As my old pal Matt Damon was telling me.
Stuart Fogarty is the
former owner of McConnell’s Advertising, the largest Agency in the state at the
time and a former President/Fellow of The Institute of Advertising
Practitioners (iapi), a founder of Core Media and a Fellow of The Marketing
Institute.
